Man gets 11 years for terrifying home invasions in Saskatoon, Regina
Donovan Lee Assiniboine sat with his hands laced behind his head as he listened to a judge decide the length of his prison sentence for three terrifying home invasions in Saskatoon and Regina.
The decision: 11 years. Minus credit for his time on remand, the 20-year-old has just over nine years left to serve.
“Mr. Assiniboine had an early life sown with chaos, neglect and uncertainty. He, as well as the rest of society, now reaps the consequences of his tragic provenance,” Justice Richard Danyliuk said at the beginning of his decision Friday in Saskatoon Court of Queen’s Bench.
On Dec. 7, 2014, Assiniboine and some youth accomplices invaded two homes in Saskatoon within an hour of each other. First, they broke into a shed in the 200 block of Seventh Street East and stole an axe, which Assiniboine then used to break into the next-door neighbour’s home. He and two others chased the female resident up the stairs, where she barricaded herself in the bedroom.
“The entire event only (lasted) a few minutes but it has impacted every aspect of my life,” the victim wrote in a statement. “Every time I try to sleep, I relive those horrible moments where I realized that someone was in my home ... I feel myself pressed up against the bedroom door and hear the axe chopping at it from the other side.”
Shortly afterward, Assiniboine and his accomplices broke into another home in the 200 block of Saskatchewan Crescent East, where they woke the resident in his bed and forced him to give them all his money and the keys to his truck.
Two weeks later, in Regina, Assiniboine and a second man, Emery Xavier Dustyhorn, broke into a home and held a 14-year-old at knifepoint while threatening the boy’s parents. They were arrested after the boy’s 16-year-old sister escaped up the stairs and called police. Dustyhorn was sentenced last month to three years in prison for his role.
During sentencing arguments for Assiniboine, the Crown argued for 12 years in prison while Assiniboine’s lawyer argued for eight years, referring to the young man’s difficult childhood marred by traumatic experiences and abuse.
“Left to drift from foster placement to foster placement, running away to rejoin a family that was dysfunctional and himself becoming an abuser of substances, and falling in with associates mired in criminality (including his siblings) — little wonder that Mr. Assiniboine might turn to a life of crime,” Danyliuk wrote.
On the other hand, Danyliuk noted, home invasions are taken very seriously in Saskatchewan courts.
“A person’s home is his or her refuge, a place of safety and comfort. A crime amounting to a home invasion violates that refuge, leaving physical and psychological trauma in its wake. Sanctions must be meaningful for any such violation.”
Danyliuk decided a total sentence of 11 years was appropriate, taking into account Assiniboine’s personal history but also the severity of the crimes and his extensive criminal record.